


Time for a Bonus

by MorriganFearn



Series: HSWC Bonus Rounds 2014 [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Humanstuck, Multi, Puella Magi Madoka Magica AU, fairytale AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:30:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2232459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorriganFearn/pseuds/MorriganFearn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some of the smaller and self contained fics that I did for HSWC's Bonus Rounds. Rating, pairing and warnings by chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Damara/Meenah: You already Changed the Past - T

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reluctant heiress, Meenah, steals a witch's spell book to go back in time and prevent her from being an heir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damara/Meenah: You already Changed the Past  
> Prompt from grausam in BR4: Tropes  
> There's some light mentions of blood, bullying and hostility in this one, but nothing heavy, though Damara plays a nasty trick on Meenah at the end.

When Meenah first stole the book, she had been intending to, she didn't know, do somefin cool. Like make sure she never was made Sea Queen of the Tides and Stars. It was a pretty dull job, ruling the bottom of the ocean. All the fun and cool stuff happened in the land kingdoms where heroes and witches manipulated the course of events to fit the plot of the paradox story. Meenah even had plans to leave the ocean, and enter the role of the mysterious thief, which was the hardest role for the paradox story to form rules about, then a freak accident happened involving the Harpoon of Regret and the castle library and suddenly she was the crown princess.

So, it was time to ice the fishstick, and blow the seaweed stand. A weak little witch apprentice lived too close to the shore for her own good, and liked to study during the daytime by taking all her books to the beach and snoozing under them. Meenah just took the one that had the most warning stickers on it, figuring that more warnings meant that you could do cooler stuff with it. Before she left, though, she knocked down the spell book cocoon just to teach the small fry that not even the noon time beach was safe. Some witches.

So, what had happened was this turned out to be a time spellbook, which was cool and all, but Meenah couldn't see any practical applications. If she'd gotten a book that took life AND went back in time, for example, she coulda krilled the castle librarian and hey, no dead princesses leaving their blood drifting all over the place. Still, maybe she could save the princess, and then run as far away as her fins could fly.

She appeared in the royal library just as the royal librarian was turning around. He let loose a deafening screech, and jumped backward, knocking into the bookcase that tottered, toppled, and fell right on top of the Harpoon of Regret, which discharged it's barbed missile just as the door was opening—Splat. Meenah winced. She was usually all for the smell of blood in the water, but family members' bright magenta tang on her gills made her feel itchy.

She quickly spoke the spell of return and then spent a whale of a time flipping through the book for a spell of undoing. All she found was more warnings. Some shitty spell books deserved to be thrown into the glubbing trash. If the thing could survive underwater without disintegrating it should be surviving for the purpose of helping her.

Maybe she wasn't thinking laterally enough. Meenah tried again. When she came back from her next jaunt she swore loudly and kicked the book into the hall. But never let it be said that the crown princess was a quitter.

The current queen was rather perplexed when her last living relative stomped across the throne room to the royal armory, and then stomped back, 2x3dent in hand. It wasn't so much that a healthy fascination for self defense and protecting others was alien to Meenah, though it was possible that the Queen needed to gain a few levels in Seeing the Signs for What They Were (there was a certain knight captain of a certain castle who was currently banished from her side—not that he had been on her side, per se, to begin with, for mentioning her lack of levels in a very crabby rude way that had stopped being funny several expletives ago). It was that Meenah for some reason seemed to have a robot bunny uselessly kicking at her, and everyone knew that all robots had been destroyed in that strange incident five hundred years back.

After her twelfth jump, Meenah returned to the beach, fuming.

The witch sat there, a cigarette in between her fingers and baggy socks around her ankles. She grinned. "You've got something of mine," her enunciation was precise, and more than a little robotic. Meenah already hated her.

"Imma gonna BURN somefin a yours if ya don tell me how ta fix this!" She pointed to the tiara, which was actually pretty swag, and she had been planning to steal from the palace before she handed in her resignation.

Beach actually laughed at her. Straight up laughed like the threat was the funniest thing in the world.

"You don't have the horns for that. All that time magic blowing up in your face? It might make you a haggard old lady before your time. Though you would still be a feisty ass grandma," she made a kissy face with her bloody red lips.

"Don you talk ta me about being old, hagfish!" yelled Meenah, who was really having none of this shit from an apprentice witch—who wasn't an apprentice, any more, she realized suddenly, seeing the full pointy hat of authority. "What the everglubbing fuck? Does this useless thing do futures, too?"

"It's not advised," the witch shrugged. "But you won't test that out, anyway."

"That's what you think—"

"What's happened each time you've tried to use my book, hmm?"

Meenah scowled. "I killed every single one a my aunts an cousfins, through hi-larious accidents. An I'm pretty shore I started the Robot War. Ended it pretty quick, though. So, what, is this book cursed ta make all the fishtory carp come true?"

The witch just grinned. "Terrible for you, isn't it? Caught forever in a destiny you can't change, just make worse for yourself," she sounded as though she relished every word. "You. Just. Can't. Win."

"Shoulda buried ya in a giant sand castle."

"But you didn't. Now, run along and give me back my book."

Meenah could see a copy of a very familiar warning label peeking out from under the red red witch skirt. "Beach, you are sitting on your glubbin' book."

"I told you I know that you won't go to the future."

Meenah felt an evil plan hatch, but she kept the smile from her face. "Hey, maybe we can trade. You got anything that would actually fix the heir to the crown bit?"

"Nope. I know an apprentice sorcerer who's got something that could destroy all life in the ocean, though, if that's your style of thing. His loyal guardian would probably rip your arms off and hang them as trophies in her home. And there's that guy with the nightmare book. But that one wouldn't be useful to you."

Meenah grinned. "Thanks for sharing, I got some books to grab," and she activated the time spell.

The witch waited on the sand for a few moments, before Meenah returned, covered in long scratches, one set of bleeding trident holes, and looking venomous. "Never been ta the future, ya said?"

"I lied."

"I NOTICED. You fugly beach, ya pushed me right inta me!"

"Please tell me how much it hurt. In detail. I've been waiting for _hours_."

"I'm gonna make your witchy life an abyssal misery!"

Damara smiled, and stood up as Meenah went back in time to do exactly that. "Of course you are. That's how we've been playing this game for centuries, Meennow." And now they could properly begin staying one step ahead of the plot the paradox story wanted for them.


	2. Aradia/Kurloz: The Clam City of Alternia - T

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aradia and Kurloz are Ghost Busters currently tasked with getting a plannar outbreak threatening the great city of Alternia with ghostly possession. Too bad one of them has been keeping secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aradia/Kurloz: Experienced Exorcists Save Everyone from Ghouls  
> Written for caity_sky's BR4 prompt
> 
> Some body horror to the jaw and mouth, described in no more detail than identical body horror in 'A Christmas Carol.'

The first useful thing that Kurloz had done was hand her a towel after their first exorcism. Aradia cleaned the mollusk slime from her hands, and looked around the cannery once more. Ghosts of departed shellfish glittered around gutting machines and made long rusted preservation barrels glow phosphorescently, but nothing abyssal looked as though it was planning a midnight snack on troll flesh, so she assumed the job was done.

Time, then, to send this awful highblood back to whatever he did for fun, and get on with her great documentary about modern archeology and how abandoned factories were just the place to do some sleuthing about the past, and no, it was not history, Eri-dork. History was what highbloods called narratives specifically created to elevate the cool castes and justify sweeps of warm caste suppression.

Kurloz tapped her on the shoulder, and pointed upward. That was the second useful thing that he had done that evening, as the ceiling exploded in ghostly tentacles, most of them with barbs on the ends. Didn't there used to be a time when respectable ghosts just rattled things mournfully? Aradia dove for her paper tags, and rolled across the floor to slap one right under where she was certain a beak-like protuberance—it was always beak-like protuberances and never kitten-like protuberances—would appear. Sure enough, an orifice ready to deliver an abyssal, and psychically deadly, scream opened in the center of the wriggling mass. Lightning lanced up from the tag, smiting the ghostly terror just as it had done to its friend a few minutes ago.

“Thanks,” Aradia turned to her partner.

Kurloz just stared upward thoughtfully. Not even one of his little smiles and a wave. If anything, he looked as though he had missed lunch and was thinking longingly of hot soup, which, considering the grossness of this whole job, was just plain weird.

Aradia suspected that she wouldn't get much more out of him unless another horror from the vast beyond attacked. She went outside, and opened up her Communicant Ranter. Nepeta was on duty back at ops tonight which, Aradia frowned. She would have preferred Feferi, who could usually figure out why two horrors had manifested. Abyssal horror was her specialty. Still, at least Nepeta took abyssal terrors really seriously, unlike Sollux, who tended to get really uppity with his precognition.

As soon as Aradia's receiver switch flipped on, Nepeta was crackling with nervous energey across the airwaves. "Ooh, heeey, I've just seen a lot of ectojuice in your general area. Is everything alright?"

"Two abyssal terrors, one of them nearly got its beak open—"

"Oh no! Seriously, are you alright Aradia?! I'm not talking to ghost you, am I, because that would be really sad, and I mean, I'm glad that you'd still talk to me as a ghost, but I don't think you'd be very happy as a ghost—"

"No, I'm not a ghost. That is really stupid. But even if I was, I wouldn't be very happy or unhappy, I think. Ghosts tend to be pretty neutral on things, unless they are not ghosts at all, but poltergeists. By the way, the first abyssal terror we met was making poltergeist clams. Which is just," Aradia paused trying to put her disbelief into words. "Just doesn't seem like a good use of anyone's time. I got lots of goo all over me."

"Yuck. I hate water. Sorry to hear that Aradia."

"It was goo, not water, but Kurloz gave me a towel, anyway. Look, just why do I have to partner with Kurloz? He really doesn't do much," and something about that whole scenario was worrying, but Aradia didn't know why. They'd had a perfectly normal job. Sure, he hadn't done much, but wht he had done counted. She just didn't—it wasn't as though he had ever been out of her sight, they had been following standard procedure to keep each other from getting possessed—she just didn't think he really cared about any of it.

"He probably doesn't need to, when you're so good at it," Nepeta's voice crackled a bit. It must be all the water in the air disrupting the signal. "He's really good with abyssal terrors, though. So if you did die and become a ghost, he could at least make sure that the abyssal terror didn't last much longer."

"I am really reassured."

"Oh good, Sollux is refusing to work with him, so I was ho—"

"That was sarcasm. I am not reassured. I would like a partner who will actually partner with me, and not," Aradia waved her hands, " _study_ abyssal terrors while I take them out."

"So, you won't work with him?" Nepeta didn't sound happy.

"Not after this weird planar breakout is done. He did sense the terror forming before I did, so that's pretty important, but not on regular jobs. He's really—"

"Creepy?" Nepeta suggested. "Annoying? A clusterfuck of would rather dogpile onto a truckload of wriggling squid tentacles than stand in silence with that guy for one more solar turn?"

"Wow. I was just going to say condescending."

"Oh! Sorry, yeah, he hasn't been making the best impression on our team—and by best impression I mean Eridan spent six hours talking to Karkat and hogging the communications lines the whole time before he was calm enough. And Cronus supplied a signed note from his lusus excusing him from duty, and Skyhorse Dad can't even HOLD pens. And Meenah was—well, they weren't very productive together.

“Anyway, I thought I'd call the Golden Prospits and Karkat was kind enough to give me the scoop on his file. It was really nice of Karkitty, don't you think? Condescending wasn't in his file though, so I think I should probably add that. But, um, how is he condescending? It's very hard to be condescending without words. Remember when we took away Equius' computer privileges and everyone said he was much more fun to be around? And Kurloz doesn't even say anything, so—You're not developing something like Vriska's abilities, are you?"

"He's got this whole "loom over the younger lowblood with my crazy highblood stature" thing going on, and he's always smiling like something I said was just the cuuuuuuut-est glubbing thing."

"Aradia."

"What?"

"We all agreed you and Feferi would never be partners again, but you can't use the same problem with every highblood. You'll get labeled as cantankerous. And someone might find out that you two played up the fighting with each other aspect so you wouldn't disappoint Damara and Meenah, if they look into your assignments too closely."

Aradia counted to three. Then she tried counting to three in binary because Sollux always snickered that it would slow her down long enough to calm down. "Okay, whatever, he's condescending and—just copy whatever Sollux said in the official report."

"Um, unless you want to explain how you suddenly have a hivemate named Mituna who has given you way too much of a personal connection for there not to be a conflict of interest—"

"That's Sollux's excuse? We are accepting pretty stupid reasonings, then. 'Oh well, itth the moirail of my hivemate, tho, yeah, can't work with him. Jutht leave me two my computerth anyway'—"

"I _can_ hear you, Aradia. It'th not ath though AC ever utheth her headthet."

"I know," Aradia grinned. "That's why it's fun!"

"Hey, Sollux, get your own microphone! When the headset works with my hat, I'll consider it."

"Thtop trying two get me two make thtuff for you when EQ getth—"

"Guys," Aradia said. "Um, how exactly did Kurloz get me a towel? He wasn't carrying one when we left. And I don't think we left each other sight lines," she looked guiltily back at the closed door to the rusting abattoir.

"There was one in the cannery?"

"Not in the parts we were in. But there might have been some in the workers' changing rooms, we did have a bit of trouble there with a few really eager espirits de crustaceans. Tossing lockers around and shoving Kurloz into the shower stalls, things of that nature. Hey, I'm going to go look into the source of mysterious towelage. You know, put it back, at least."

Aradia re-secured the communicator to her wrist, and then, hearing Nepeta and Sollux arguing about ghostly lobster potential, and whether they should make sure the teams were three man if the ghosts could toss lockers in the air, cautiously flipped off the receiving switch. But, just in case Kurloz was wandering innocently in some other part of the cannery and couldn't warn her about another imminent abyssal terror, she turned the switch that detected and transmitted ether currents on. It beeped sadly as she crossed the cannery yard, detecting former crustaceans and people's fish dinners. Aradia noted the beeping speeding up as she entered the factory once more, and made her way to the employees' changing area.

When she entered the changing room the ether detector became a steady drone, and she discovered that Kurloz was not, in fact, wandering, or doing any of that wandering innocently. He was hunched over a spectral hole in the floor, head down, normally closed mouth open revealing spectral tendrils and the snapping beginnings of a beaky protuberance. He appeared to be feeding on the spectral hole which whined and shrieked as it lost more and more of its ecto-etheric energy. No wonder the former lobsters had been so strong. They had probably been drawing energy from the hole, and terrified as soon as they realized what exactly Kurloz was—something Aradia wished she had known.

"You're a ghost eater," Aradia said, deciding that the sound of the meal was too much like nails on a chalkboard. "That explains why you have a good record on abyssal terror exorcisms. You devour them once all the witnesses are dead, don't you? And the recently dead flock definitely need to destroy you to survive. That was really a headache, listening to them tonight. You even brought out ghostly tinned things that didn't remember what they'd been. I wish you had told me about this earlier."

_**WELL, THIS IS A BIT OF A MOTHERFUCKING LIGHTFOOTED SURPRISE.**_ Kurloz looked up, some of the ghost that was using his skin retreating back inside, but unfortunately for Kurloz, it left his jaw unhinged and hanging. There wasn't much to look at, though, since without the ghostly beak and tentacles, there didn't seem to be much left of a bodily persuasion inside his mouth. _**I KIND OF HAD YOU PEGGED ON BEING A BIT OF A MIDNIGHT SNACK, IN A FRIENDLY WAY, A LITTLE FURTHER DOWN THE LINE, EXORCIST. BUT THE WORLD MOVES IN SOME OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS MOTHERFUCKING WAYS.**_

Oh boy. So that's what a ghost with complex thoughts sounded like: like bones being ground to powder and then slammed in a cheesecloth sack directly into the thinkpan.

"Yes. They are indeed quite mysterious. So, just what kind of ghost is inside you? I assume you went for a pretty good one. It would have been kind of ridiculous to give up your free will for a regular old ghost or even a poltergeist."

The contortion of Kurloz's eyebrows, his main mode of expression without a working mouth, it seemed, suggested that the three sweeps difference in experience between them was not enough for him to be remotely entertained that she had dared to think he would ever allow a normal ghost possess him.

_**JUST BECAUSE A GLORIOUS CREATURE OF THE VOID DECIDES TO ATTACH ITSELF TO A MISERABLE BOD AND START CHEWING A BIT ON THE DIVINE SWEET NECTAR OF HIS LIVIN' LIFE DOESN'T MEAN THE MOTHERFUCKER WHO IS BEING CHEWED DOESN'T HAVE A CHOICE IN THE MATTER, OR CONTROL OVER WHAT HAPPENS IN THE AFTER.** _

"So not a poltergeist, probably not a rogue spirit. Are you actually mostly abyssal terror? Because that is what it looks like, and if you have retained your free will, that is pretty amazing. Ooh, there are all sorts of questions I could ask you about the afterlife and ether, aren't there? Are there any interesting ghost customs?"

Kurloz cocked his head to one side, and then, finding the curl of his eyebrows inadequate, used his fingers to spread the muscles at the top of his mouth in a top lip approximation of that superior smile he wore. _**AH, BUT THOSE WOULD BE A FEW BITS OF MYSTERY YOU'LL BE DISCOVERING SOON ENOUGH. SORRY TO PUT THE HARSH ON TWIN TWO, BUT HE'LL BE HEARING ALL THE SWEET VOICES PRETTY SOON, SO HOPEFULLY YOURS IN THE MYSTIC CHORUS WON'T UPSET HIM TWO MUCH.**_

"Wow, it really _is_ possible to hear the difference in spelling in your head."

Something like a patter of bone bits on top of a drum pounded in Aradia's thinkpan, and she realized Kurloz was laughing. _**CAPTORS'D UNDER THE INFLUENCE.**_

"That was really terrible,” but Aradia knew she was smiling. It was exciting, knowing something this deadly was coming straight for you, and knowing that you had the power to stop it, hah, dead. “This has actually been really fun and cool in a grim way, Kurloz. But I guess you don't want this secret to be found out."

Kurloz flexed spidery hands, and reached up to wrench his jaw back into place. _**YES. THAT IS ALL PART OF THE INFORMING MY BRAVE PARTNER OF THEIR TRAGIC ROLE IN THIS UNFORTUNATE SHADOW PLAY. AND THE HINT OF MOTHERFUCKING REGRET FOR MESSING UP A BRO'S DAY PRETTY BAD.**_

"Well, if you didn't want to let this secret get out, you probably should have turned my Communicant's ether transmitter off before you started shouting ether right back to the Dark Derse Agency's operations room. Also, I turned my receiver off, but they can still hear me just fine. That's a lot of people to get rid of and files to sweep under the rug. Do you even know how to do that? Get rid of computer files, I mean?"

Kurloz stared at her, and then the laughter began. Aradia waited patiently, but it went from the sound of percussive bones to a whole maelstrom of amusement after a few minutes. _**YOU ARE A CONNIVING HORROR OF A MOTHERFUCKER, YOU KNOW THAT?**_

"I just wanted to know where you got that towel from, actually."

_**HERE. I NEEDED SOMETHING TO CLEAN MY HANDS AFTER I RAN INTO A CLAMMY LITTLE MEAL WHILE WE WERE SCOPING OUT THE BUILDING. THEY REALLY THOUGHT SHOVING ME AROUND WAS GOING TO KEEP ME FROM GETTING MY FILL.** _

"That is pretty gross," Aradia said, without much rancor. "So, we go back to the agency, report the abyssal terror situation of the cannery, mention the abyssal sink hole, so a legitimate clean up team can come in, and then figure out what to do about the abyssal terror situation of you. This is really exciting, though. I don't think I've seen a possessed body not decay within a sweep, so, you win the not rotting award, already."

_**YOU MIGHT BE MORE OF A RIGHTEOUS AMUSEMENT LIVING,**_ Kurloz told her consideringly.


	3. Equius & Horuss & Darkleer: What Did You Do?! - G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Equius tries to find out what his brother has done to earn 100 pushups.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humanstuck Military Base AU. You can practically see the potential teenaged rebellion.  
> Done for seiryunohoshi's prompt "Scary Shiny Glasses" in BR4: Tropes

"I must know what you did!" Equius hissed at his older brother between push ups.

Horuss' normally open expression had closed into one that would have given his little brother's frown a good run for its money. He didn't even count off his push ups, a sure sign that he was going to get reprimanded in the very near future for his neighligence. Negligence! Anything Leijon, and puns were certainly Leijon, were currently forbidden.

Still, any minute now, father would stand up from his corner, and reprimand the pair of them for not following orders. Equius could feel himself heating up. Horuss was simply forgetting to count, but he was being a bad brother by not reminding Horuss, and worse, he was willfully ignoring the count. He could feel sweat slide down his spine. This was the evil, underhanded kind of thing that Captain Serket's youngest daughter always recommended, and he should be ashamed. He was ashamed! His older brother should look down on him, and spit. Certainly his father would.

But until he knew why they were in trouble, he refused to help Horuss obey. His brother could be lost in his own world, see if Equius cared. But he did care. He cared a lot. Enough to give up his Saturday afternoon to join Horuss in punishment rotation when he could have just as easily hid in his room and been forgotten as always.

In the corner, their father waited, sitting with his arms crossed as his sons were supposed to give him 100% of their energy. As Equius came up from the latest push, the afternoon sunlight streaming through the slated blinds on the window bounded off his glasses, making his expression nigh on unreadable. Equius' own glasses slipped down his nose on the next dip, sweat loosening them just enough for the ear pieces to become useless.

The telephone rang. Colonel Zahhak rose from the chair with a soft sigh and went to answer it.

"What did you do?" Eguius hissed again, daring to glare at Horuss, now that their father was no longer watching.

In the hallway he could hear their father trying to keep his voice low. "I understand, General M..." more mumbling, "I most certainly agree ..." silence. Silence. Possibly some yelling from the other end of the line. "In the Master Sergeant's defense, sir ... no sir, of course, I agree ... I never would oppose ... never ... my word ... Nitram ..."

Horuss blinked, suddenly focusing on his little brother, brought back to some sort of reality. "I was, ah, seen fraternizing. With," he had mastered the same empty pauses their father was so good at, "unsuitable people."

"Oh," There wasn't really much anyone else could say. That had been the trouble two years ago when Equius had been caught having tea with Nepeta. Becoming friends with the daughter of a non-com was bad, but becoming friends with the daughter of a dishonorably discharged non-com had made the Colonel hit the roof. There was still a crack in the living room ceiling, and the floor above groaned alarmingly if stepped upon. "Who were you with?"

"Um. Well, there was a bit of a tussle, really. We had it all sorted out before Lieutenant Ampora walked by. But, ah, well, I suppose it, um, looked bad. Tussling with a Megido, I mean. She makes most things look very bad, indeed. And Rufioh was wheezing a little. I think she elbowed him when he tried to intervene. But I'm sure no harm was really meant."

"YOU WHAT?" Equius yelled, forgetting for the moment that he was supposed to be keeping his voice to a dull roar.

The click of the phone returning to its cradle echoed in the hall. Oh god, oh god, and General Makara had been on the other end of the line and everyone knew there was a bit of a thunderstorm brewing on base re: respect being paid to Chaplin Megido, and disagreements on the running of things between Master Sergeant Nitram and the top brass. They were both dead. And after they died, they would have to go bury themselves in shame for having broken all the rules about interaction with undesirable people.

The Colonel returned to his post, and waited without a word for a full five minutes, the sunlight rendering him inscrutable. Then, at last, after the agonizing torture he said very quietly. "Horuss. Son. I am very disappointed."


	4. Kanaya<3Vriska: The Prom Queen - G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanaya has promised to make prom night the best one of Vriska's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humanstuck Kanaya♥Vriska BR4: Tropes  
> Written for equiborn's prompt: Vriska is the least popular girl in school and Kanaya is really good at makeovers. Kanaya loses a bet, challenges herself, whatever to make Vriska prom queen, and realizes that Vriska is actually kinda cool.
> 
> Warning for spiders, this is not for arachnaphobes
> 
> A marvelous design for Vriska's dress (and Legs the Spider) was done by urbanmystic as part of BR7 and can be found [here](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/23600.html?thread=7353136#cmt7353136).

Vriska looked at herself in the mirror. Kanaya hoped that the once awkward girl now saw what she saw: All American Grunge transformed into All American Prom Queen, not quite complete without the tiara, but that could happen later in the evening. Slowly Vriska's bright blue lips broke into a wide sharp smile, and she glanced over her shoulder at Kanaya, offering up a fist to bump. Kanaya accepted the ritual now, ignoring the way Vriska's knuckles crashed into hers with too much force. That was just part of the spider obsessed package.

"Yeeeeeeeessssssss! I'm perfect! This'll show Miss Homecoming Queen, Miss Prom Queen of three years ago, Miss Perfect Girl with the perfect badgirl girlfriend, Miss Dean's List."

"Your sister has a few things to recommend her, it is true," Kanaya said, watching Vriska twirl with grace and poise. "But you can always exceed them if you put your mind to it. Your drive is quite--drivey."

Vriska laughed. "And I've always loved the way you can state the obvious with such a serious face. Ooooooooh, I need to get Legs to complete my ensemble!" She ran for her dresser and its terrarium in a blast of blue tulle and black lace. Kanaya tried not to shudder at the thought of the pet tarantula walking all over her shoulders later that evening. Hopefully the spider would like the hair comb Kanaya had specifically designed with arachnid housing as well as hair taming in mind.

"I'm sorry there is no corsage," Kanaya added.

"Pfft," Vriska held her pet up to allow the spider to crawl over her fingers. "I'd just crush it. I'm not made for pretty things. I'm just made for diamond rings," she cooed, circling slowly as though she was waltzing.

"See if she likes the hair comb," Kanaya urged.

Perhaps there was an ulterior motive. Perhaps she wanted to be the one waltzing with Vriska. She turned on the radio by the vanity discretely, but none of the stations were appropriate. As she fiddled with the dials, a warm hand alighted on her fingers, reducing the mood music to an incoherent hiss of static.

Kanaya turned to gaze at Vriska in all her glory, a spider in her hair, a dress that would have looked more at home on a vampire as drawn by Picasso during his blue period, and perfect make up that was threatened by the liquid building up in Vriska's eyes. She wiped at them as soon as she knew Kanaya was staring, leaving a trail of mascara running sideways to her ear.

"It's the contacts," she lied, a perfectly Vriska lie that made compassion and pity and all of the squishy feelings already churning inside Kanaya balloon into something greater. "I just wanted to know if the pretty lady wanted a dance?"

"I would always want a dance with you," Kanaya wondered if her truths made Vriska weak at the knees the way Vriska's lies left her.

"And you should," the girl laughed, sweeping an arm around Kanaya's waist, and grabbing her free hand. But even though she was leading, it was Vriska who rested a cheek on Kanaya's shoulder, threatening to spill an unhappy tarantula onto Kanaya's back. "Thanks for giving up your prom to make Alternia High's worst drop out feel like a queen."

"You are a queen," Kanaya promised. "I just lost your tiara in my car. I will go find it when the pizza gets here."

"Does it sparkle?"

"Yes."

"Does it shine so much that you could see it from space?"

"You can certainly see it from a long way away. I used glitter, beads, sequins, and rhinestones chipped out of my old costume jewelry."

"Well, I'll make do with short range bling, then," Vriska chuckled. To Kanaya's ears she sounded a little watery, but Vriska was already lifting her head to spin away from Kanaya, testing out the flow of her dress once more, and Kanaya was content to watch her delight.


	5. Roxy<3<Eridan: What Did You Just Say about Troll Star Wars?! - T

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eridan is stuck as a naval officer on a science vessel charting a very boring sector of space where there isn't even a chance of starting a war unless asteroids are your personal enemies. Unfortunately one of the science team is hot and likes the same things he likes, but in completely the wrong way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-SGRUB, Troll-AU Eridan/Roxy from BR4: Tropes  
> Written for Dojinski's prompt: Doing In The Wizard
> 
> Warning for both Eridan and Roxy being very drunk and generally insulting in a domestically kismesissy way

"I am disonwing—diswoning—disowning! you. Disowning you so fast your shameglobes will get rug bun as I toss ya oot on your ass," Roxiie slurred draping herself all over Eridan's couch in a way that no naval officer should condone in his subordinates.

However, since he was flat on his back on said couch, after what he had thought was a very good beginning to hot flushed sloppy makeout town, he supposed he couldn't get too annoyed. Despite the fact that she had gotten drunk before even touching him, and she kept claiming that he was a total douchefin, whenever she could get the word around her own slurring or his tongue.

The word wriggled unpleasantly under his skin. Maybe he shouldn't have tried to match her drink for drink. Even though he definitely had possessed the smarts to give up after the second glass. Bottle? No, definitely glass. She drank like a fuckin fish was his point.

"Wwe're in _my_ personal relaxbin."

"Sooooooooooooooooo?"

"Sooooooooooooooooo," he drew out the word just to annoy her and watch the flush on her cheeks darken from violet to near black. He might think she was the hottest thing since Somunlari's supernova, but that didn't mean he didn't think she looked great when irritated. Roxiie's skin was much like her octocat lusus—she changed color in fascinating ways when upset, and he particularly admired the bright pink tinge over her fin bones whenever she was ready to lay about with her rifle, "iffin anybody's gonna get kicked outta my place, it's gonna be me—I mean you!"

Roxiie giggled, sliding down the arm of the couch to land her full weight on his legs. She slithered upward pressing every contour and, ah, bulge on Eridan's body. Were they actually going to? Could it be that they were going to pail? At last? Was ten sweeps of completely concupiscent free relations finally going to end on this shitty science vessel doing it's routine borin' patrol of the Ulamus sector?

Roxiie nibbled on one finger, her gray tongue coating it seductively. Nerveless at his sides, his hands finally sprung to life, ready to—ward off the wet willie Rozy had destined for his ear gills. "Wwhat the hell?!"

"Thass whatcha get for sayin' Troll George Lucas made a good defishion ta make tha Force run on bad science!" Roxiie cackled. "Ya freakfin' imbecile. If ya make me watch that travesty a one a my wave-o-rite universes Imma gonna hold ya down and make ya scream for some true and awesome Jedis ta come and save ya."

Eridan felt his blood heating. He was sure it was heating. Kan's treasure trove of romance trash novels that he might or might not have read eagerly always went on and on about hot bodies, even with icey seadwellers involved. Roxiie's body was always slight colder than his but right where she was pressing he suddenly suspected some sort of semi-lowblood mutation in his genes (and immediately loathed her for making him suspect it). But—this was not playing out like he had imagined. "Ah, wait—are wwe doin' this black?"

Roxiie paused, stared at him, and blinked watery seadweller eyes. "A course? What tha hell Ampora, didja think I liked arguin' witcha an' ridiculin' erry des—descif—idea ya have 'cause I wanted ta pity ye—ya?"

"Ummm," Eridan trailed off.

Roxiie burst out laughing. "Okay, so it's not strictly speakin' a good thing in a kismetsinis—kismessass—whateeeeeeeva, but I like it that you're so bumble fuck dumb. Now, are we gonna watch us some Lucas tripe, or are ya gonna read the messages all wrong tonite?"

Eridan reached onto the floor, fished around, and then tossed the DVD case at Roxiie, wondering if this was a good opening move in actual, 100% real calignous relations, starting with arguments over fakey fake stuff like fictional magic.


	6. Darkleer<>Mindfang: The Ghost Train - T

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darkleer did not know what to expect when he was pushed onto the empty train, but the specters of his past were not it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darkleer♦Mindfang, with implied Mindfang♥Summoner written in BR4: Tropes  
> Written for bhelryss's prompt: Afterlife Express
> 
> Warning for character death as required by the trope

"Tickets, buuuuuuuuddy," a horribly familiar voice says over your shoulder.

You don't have tickets. You were just pushed on board the train amid the fog and smoke by a hauntingly familiar conductress with curled horns and a wicked grin. You would say that she was a lowblood, but it's not possible, because you're certain that the last time you saw her was sweeps ago, taking tickets to a grand showing at the old carnival. There is no way she could have lived so long.

Still, you are now aboard some lower class passenger car that doesn't even have compartments, just little seats back to back. It is no better or worse than your infrequent uses of transport over the past few hundred sweeps, but you wish there were a few other people about, other than you and the familiar voice of the ticket conductor.

You look up through your smoke tinged ocular glassicals. It _is_ her. The uniform looks much better on her than the wild pirate coat that had last been in fashion a hundred sweeps before you were even grubs, but there is something just this side of wrong about Mindfang that makes you squint suspiciously. Is it the smoke that wreaths her like a nimbus? Or maybe it is the solidity with which she exists when you remember her body rammed through by a spear.

Seeing her looking so alive and vibrant is reminding you of how long it took to get her blood off the wood paneling, and how difficult, it seemed to do the decent things. Lay her out, cover her face, wear funereal black when everything you owned was a shade of brown. Organize the cremation. Find all the graveyards and spit on the graves of her enemies. Her last act in your life had been a lonely, painful one, where you sat at a clear space in your work bench, poured a bottle with trembling fingers, and toasted the ghost of a woman who had made your life a misery from the moment she found you wandering the streets and convinced you there was a better use for the final bullet in your blunderbuss. Still, no reason not to say "hello" before you are thrown unceremoniously from the train. "Marquise."

"I thought it was you," she sits down. More like sprawls dramatically across the opposite seat. Leather creaks. "C'mon now, tell me how it has been?"

"I don't have a ticket, Mindfang."

"Pfft, you wouldn't. Everyone always passes you over, don't they? Even the Train Lords. But so what? I'll let you on this time."

"You are not doing your duty," not that she ever has. Still, you must instil in her some sort of order, or her lack of discipline will eat her alive one day.

It did eat her alive. It ruined her, those bright throbbing feelings she had never experienced properly before. No. You are tired of thinking about Mindfang as a body. Here she is, alive and careless. She lot an arm to her reckless belief in her own immortality. You have told her again and again that you are not her personal doctor, but you patched that up anyway, and now it looks as though she has found someone even better than you when it comes to changing a body's hurts. Not that she has ever cared that your work has been undone. Even so, you must try to make her see that she has some small responsibility. "If you are a conductor, here, you will—"

A white gloved finger reaches out to press against your black lips. White is much more her style, you think. At the back of your mind, something is screaming that this is wrong. She is so real. You feel her heart beat as readily as your own. "Duties here are a little different. T'be honest, Dorkleer, I'm on this train for a different ride altogether. We weren't even expecting anyone to come on for a long while. So, what have you been doing with yourself? Moping up a storm? Withering away into despair like a chump now there's now one to come along and jolly roger you out of it?"

"I have been quite content, actually," you know she is maneuvering you into the stiff soldierly version of yourself that you feel ashamed to even contemplate. Your oldest mask, dropped in cowardice is still the mask that she knows the best, and finds easiest to play upon. Not the doctor, not the inventor, not the unwilling anarchist for her cause, she wants to make you the soldier, because she can convince the soldier of anything. Mindfang is never going to be accused of being subtle. You will not humor her. "Not patching you up after your bank heists does wonders for one's calm."

She scowls, and her hand drifts up to play with a swinging tassel on the curtains. Leather creaks behind you, and you wonder when the deserted train car became crowded. Looking to the side, you see yourself speaking with a ghostly figure, earnestly oblivious to the contemptuous sneer lifting the painted lip over already sizeable fangs.

Mindfang sees you looking over. "As I said, duties are a little different here. We're all conductors for someone else."

"He's not dead yet!" you can't take your eyes away, because you know what you are looking at are specters, no more real than this oddly pleasant fantasy of seeing your most difficult patient one last time. "I would have read about it in the broad sheets."

"Oh would you? You mean you're coming out of that stuffy basement of yours at least once a day? Be careful, sir," she purrs, "you might even become sociable. But he will die someday. And when that day comes, apparently you'll be willing to conduct him at least part of the way."

"Time and space do not work like this," you fall back on the familiar comfortable mask of science. "I would have to be looking into a parallel dimension to see this."

Mindfang makes a noise of disgust. "It works in Pupa Tales."

"Which, as I am not a pupa, I see no need to take as fact."

"That's always been the problem with you, you know! You never let the, the romance of the moment just sweep you off your feet. You can't let anything that might take you over just carry you away for even a moment."

If you recall correctly, and you do, this is precisely why you have never been uneasy around Mindfang, possibly the only person in all of Alternia-Londinium who could say as much. Oh, you have been uneasy around her for other reasons, her predilection for chaos, and her habits of reckless endangerment being the chief reasons, but from her tricorn to her favored floppy boots, you have always been able to trust her. If she can't actively manipulate she tends not to know how to destroy.

You have to know, because she is right about the romance, both that you lack the capacity for it, and that she allowed herself to be carried away by its abundance. "Was the romantic moment worth it?"

She smiles and her eyes crease in that smug way that spoke of a happy fat pupahood you sometimes wonder at but never dared to speculate on why she left it behind. "Even you thought my brave soldier boy was worth more than a second glance."

"A second glance is not the same as your life."

Her mouth purses and scowls. She's younger, you realize. She has always looked in your eyes the same way she did when she picked you out of the gutter, but you remember being shocked at the white starting to weave through her hair as you arranged it neatly before drawing the sheet over a slack face with broad laugh lines at its edges. She was old when she died. She is young now. A cold feeling steals over you that if you look out the window you will see your reflection in the glass and it will not be the reflection you saw when you last shaved.

Mindfang distracts you gamely. "He might have been worth it. He might not. That was history. Did he have a good life? You never told me—"

You don't want to tell her you didn't hate him. You don't want to tell her that you understood why it happened, just as you understood why you were the only one there to give her grace. Aranea Serket was remembered as an awful troll. You know if you had been the person you should have been, the wronged hero of your stories, you would have destroyed the person who killed your horrible moirail. You didn't hate him. "He died in the war," you clear your throat. You had been in the crowd and you had wanted to weep for the once flashing eyes that were dull and the tattered wings that drooped. You had been in the crowd to see him off, because it was the decent thing to do. "I should say, he died during the war. They arrested him, finally. Killed that lusus. Made him a public execution."

Mindfang growls. You can hear the whir in her thorax. She glares at a passenger manifest in her hand. "And I know who wrote that order, too. I _asked_. Four bloody people to meet that painted horror. I should join the line just to kick him in the shins."

"Who would you ask, if you needed to know from me?" You begin.

She waves your question away. "My rebellious Summoner boarded this train long ago. He didn't want to talk much. It happens. Other people wanted to see him. Past and future. Remember that barrister I killed? He apparently went on to conduct her, part of the way. It all comes back. What goes around on this train comes around."

"It is not possible," you state. More like mumble. Really, you were brought up better than this.

"Yes, it is—"

"Tickets," the curl horned conductor rasps over your shoulder, smirking at you.

"I am afraid I do not have—"

"You do," there is something about her smile that you find distinctly off putting. She hurls a broadsheet onto the seat next to you. A postage stamp of a box talks about a fire breaking out in an abandoned lab in the neighborhood where you live. Lived. A ticket lands beside the note to turn to page five for more details.

You pick it up and hand it to her wordlessly. "Are you my conductor, too?"

She laughs like metal gears catching in a breaking music box, punches the ticket, and turns away.

Mindfang whistles. "And here I thought you had no gumption marrow in your whole body. She is only here for one person."

"I refuse to believe in demons, even if that conductor looks very much like one. So, you will conduct me part of the way, and then what? Everyone else who cared about me will," you pause, feeling the words like coal smoke in your lungs. "Oh."

Mindfang just grins. "You're stuck with me for the entire trip, Dorkleer. Won't that be fun?"

"No," you reply automatically, feeling a trebling smile press up against your lips, and water building up on the interior of your ocular glassicals.

"Hey, you did it for me," the freebooter anarchist confesses.

You continue chatting about all the things you both care about and don't as the next stop on the line looms ahead of you. Maybe there will be other trains and other people then, but for now you have each other.


	7. Jane<3<Meenah: I Challenge You to a Robot Off - G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane challenged Meenah to build a better robot. Who was Piexes to say 'no'?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jane♠Meenah for BR4: Tropes  
> Written for Doxian's prompt: Duels Decide Everything
> 
> Light mentions of potential body image problems

"Maybe this would be better if it were an anime," you moan, putting your head in your hands, and face planting into your laptop.

At the other end of the Skype line there is still nothing but a chair and the creator styled 'triangular piece of shit that does nothing but soaks up the sun's rays' experimental solar panel death robot. In the chat box there is nothing but a string of "mksqlwm" from your knuckles' recent encounter with the keyboard. You think you smudged your glasses.

"Dirk, please, please, please GET OUT OF YOUR SHOWER!"

You know yelling through Skype never solves anything, and you're not even sure if even his robotics club experiments can pick up on the vibrations. You kind of expect that he turns the volume down low just to have the excuse that he didn't hear anything. You check out your other friends for a moment but Roxy's Facebook status is still "bset concert 5evah," and, as usual, no e-mail from Jake.

"mksqlwmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

* * *

Alright, time to thrash an upstart. Her cupcakes are to fuckin' DIE for, and that just pisses you off mightily, because you've seen the recipe, and that shit is going to the hips and stayin' there like a limpet on wet rocks. You want to just indulge the fuck out on what is, in the end, cocoa powder and oil and sugar and cream cheese icing. It's the cream cheese icing that sent you over the edge. Because it was Serket's birthday, or whatever, little miss Daddy's girl iced the top of the cupcakes like gold doubloons. Edible gold doubloons. You kinda wanna give her all the gold stars for her imagination, and you kinda wanna make her choke on them for realizin' her imagination in such a devious way.

Also, she made a gluten free set for Megido, and you're damned if you will let yourself admire someone who takes Megido diets into account. Though, to be honest, it was kinda a brilliant way to shut up Vantas on the subject of remembering the special needs of the whole class.

Arrrrgh, you tug on your braids and wish you could figure this all out. High school royally sucks. Your moms suck even worse, though, because you're grounded after that last little incident of "play stab the fork into Megido" and so getting your revenge on Crocker is gonna be a challenge. You bust open Rufioh's cell phone, because weeny weebees are your ticket to gettin' out of grounded jail free. Dude didn't even bother to password protect it this time. You might need to have a word with him about that, because this should be at least a little bit of a challenge.

Like that Crocker chick slammin' her fist down on your lab bench and sayin', so the whole class can hear, "Ooh, Meenah Peixes, you aren't even listening to me! I challenge you to a robot contest!"

And of course the bell rang before you could pick your jaw off the floor. Now, of course, you're stuck, because Serket was enjoying the hell out of her October B-day surprise one bench over, and even if the whole class hadn't heard Crocker, and they did, Serket certainly had, and Serket would blab. And if she didn't, Vantas would, because dude was like an old biddy on the gossip ball. You are expectin' a Turn Out for a competition with no set rules, and no set date.

You're a little confused as to why she challenged you to a robot building competition. It's not like either of you know much about robots, though you do know two lonely ass suckerfish who do know a hell of a lot about robots and know how you're gonna beat her ass, but still, robots. Oil and metal, and well, not sexy ass cakes, or bitchin' weapons knowledge over the centuries, or anything that would give either a you a home field advantage. It's kinda making you wonder if you should figure out why she challenged you.

But mostly, it's making you try to figure out how to build a prize winnin' robochamp within the next week, because you don't know jack shit about any of this.

Fucking hell, you were sure Nitram had Zahhak's number saved in his contacts, where the hell is it?

* * *

"And I don't know flap jack about any of this!" You relate your tale of woe to your conspirator who is completely unconcerned about his betowelled state being visible to the naked webcam. He is, you think, more concerned about becoming your conspirator at the last minute.

Or maybe not. You've never been able to accurately parse his layers of expressionlessisms and ironies. Something he holds over your head like a mouse on a string before a cat. Normally you're happy to indulge his wry sense of humor, but now is not the time.

At least Di-Stri looks as though he's taking this seriously as he draws in his breath. "So, you're saying you want to be in a high school animu—"

"I thought it was anime?"

"Animu. Trust me," those two words out of his mouth make your prank-o-meter senses go off the charts.

But, it is really his thing, terrible eyewear and all. You will roll with the punches until he pulls one over on you that gets your competitive streak going a-blazes. Not that Dirk has ever managed to pull one over on you per se. Tried to multiple times, that bunny currently living on top of your computer being the latest attempt, but pranking is just not his style, and competition he can't underhandedly undercut makes him noddle out. Which is why you are certain that you will make a great team on this one. You make up for his deficits, and he provides cover for your weaknesses.

"Anyway, you are the star of this animu where you challenge the bully to a showdown and maybe you lose, but you win in the hearts and minds of everyone, izzat correct? Because you stood up to her."

"Pretty much. Only I'd like to win, too. Meenah Piexes really gets," you search for the word, waving your arms in the air. "I'm sure she's a the dastardly villain behind this seemingly innocent facade."

"The seemingly innocent facade that pals around with manipulative spider girls, tries to stab actually innocent, if weird, transfer students with forks, and takes valuable stuff from people in her general vicinity without asking, or any intent of return?"

"That's the one!" You pause as Dirk's words sink in. You've always thought of Meenah's personal foibles as, well, her own foibles, ones that you personally despise, but are not from anyone else's perspective too objectionable. The way he puts it, however, it is just possible someone agrees with you about her. Take that Mr. Karkat Vantas! "You don't think she's innocent?"

"Jane, I have seen—and placed!—smuppets in more innocent positions of the steamiest 4-chan erotica than Fishlips Piexes. What I'm saying is: Let's blow her popsicle stand sky high."

* * *

"Do I look like I give any boonbucks how your sniveling ass song sounds, Cronus? I just want Zahhak's number. Surely _you've_ got it. SOMEONE has to! And you're all up in everyone's digits."

A sigh, possibly of frustration, greets you from the other end of the line. "You knoww," he says drawing out the 'oo' sound in that annoying wavey little way of his, "not that I'm not sayin' anything against your methods of operation, but maybe you shouldn't have taken the phone from the one guy who has any hope of tracking the dude down."

"Then get me Nitram on the phone, you twwwwwwwwit!" you yell.

"No can do, boss lady," you can hear his voice drop into relish on the 'lady' and if he was in the room you would give him such a smack. "I told you, I got a set going right now, and we've almost gotten Zahhak sorted so he doesn't crash through the drums..."

There is a long long long pause as you contemplate how much you hate the universe, Cronus Ampora, and everyone else you've had to call today to get through to him. Porrim was less than no help, and she lectured you on theft, competition and pretty much everything. You're pretty sure Vantas gets it from her. Meulin yakked your ear off about how much she was looking forward to the competition and would be rooting for whoever needed the support. Latula blatantly laughed and said she was looking forward to your take down, because the rival of your rival is your friend. She also told you to ask Vantas because he was good at people finding, and you're sure that was just a ploy to drive you up the fucking wall. You were kind of desperate enough that you considered giving Kurloz a ring because he usually will put the phone in front of a nearby radio at least, instead of answering, and hey, that might actually be less annoying than all your so-called friends combined.

Case in point, when you did call Vantas, Cronus picked up and proceeded to yammer on about his ridiculous attempt at forming a band. You're pretty sure that was Latula's goal all along. On the other hand, Crocker put you up to this shit, and Crocker is going down, so you can't afford to ruminate anymore.

"Well, if he's there, get Zahhak over here! NOW! I need to learn how to build a freaking battle bot by tomorrow!" There is nothing like upping the timeline to make the pet dolphins jump through hoops for you.

* * *

Your battle bot is a success. Sort of. It can, well, move. Jerkily. Hoo boy.

At least Meenah's doesn't seem much better. Though it has a nerf gun launcher strapped to it, and exactoknife blades are attached to the tips of the suction cups. Meenah is very good at combining things that shouldn't be combined.

You kind of wish you had thought to mount your battle bot with such a brilliant distraction as obvious armament. Admittedly, it probably would have collapsed under its own weight at that point. Getting the wheels to move it alone, and constructing the spring loaded concealable arm had been hard enough. It had taken a lot of fancy maths from Dirk, and a lot of cuts to your fingers with the tin shears to make the boxy concealment chassis that forms the bulk of your creation.

Still, as you look down the hallway, to Meenah's deadly looking effort at the other end of the lockers, you're pretty proud of yourself. Not only did you force her into actually showing up with your public challenge, but she seems to have put some real effort in. This is better than you could have imagined.

In the middle of the hall, Sollux Captor from Roxy's computing class puts a hand over his face and mutters that this was such a stupid plan, why did he even get involved? He drops a sheet of paper to tell the participants to start.

You gun your little box bot down the hallway, which admittedly means its sad wheels are creaking in distress, and it judders and jiggles at an impressive six feet per hour. Meenah is trotting alongside her own creation which actually moves with speed, the bicycle chains of its tread chugging along, mysteriously not slipping on the linoleum. You look at Dirk who shrugs and suggests "fishing line?"

Well, you would object—and you can hear the loud skater girl trying to—but you have other. Fish. To. Fry.

Meenah's bot lets loose one of the Nerf dart barrage, and it clatters harmlessly off your nervously squealing bot's impenetrable sides. Five more follow, and when all six are exhausted, with a clanking crunch it begins to change to a backup roll.

But your little bot is already upon it, and you swirl the joystick around, decide to press up on the controller given Meenah's proximity, and press 'A' on your controller.

The box of your robot spins on its axis. the door opens, and the Concealable Collapsible Arm springs out, one deadly cupcake going straight for Meenah's shocked face.

You win, and defeat must taste perfectly sweet on your rival's lips. It is too bad that the stress of all that movement causes your really terrible robot to start to smoke, catch fire, and then blow up.

* * *

You are covered in frosting, soot marks, and cupcakey goodness. Crocker smirks and sez that she expects you to be calling her Empress of Baked Goods from now on, and you will never refuse one of her tastey class treats again.

You snarl, licking frosting from your finger. Oh cod. You are in heaven. Fuck no. You wanna invite her to prom and dunk her in blood.

You are Meenah Peixes, and you've fallen for Jane Crocker. You wish there was a word for falling for someone just to see them push their hardest for you, and wreck themselves all over the place. High school sucks.


	8. Feferi & Rose: The Meguca of Life - T

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feferi introduced Rose and Jade to a magical world. Rose made a contract. Feferi made a witch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Megucastuck Feferi & Rose, implied Rose♥Jade, implied Feferi♥Aradia  
> Done for rainbowonlooker's prompt from BR5: Quotes
> 
> Warnings for death, blood, and depression, as generally seen in the Puella Magica universe
> 
> "Witches prey on weak humans and we prey on those witches. Isn't that how nature works? This is how we separate the weak from the strong" - Kyoko, _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_
> 
> There's a beautiful depiction of Vriska's world and Rose's reaction after first making a contract and murdering Vriska done by lausagi and can be found [here](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/23600.html?thread=7584048#cmt7584048).

The light goes out of the world. You don't dare to breathe. It's breaking and cracking all around you, but you're a witch, you can't be afraid of the sea. You're more powerful than it is. You can see—

_S-E----------E what?_

You can see—

_S-------------EA_

Jade quivers in terror behind you, but you can sea—

_Don't grab for your jewel_

You do it anyway, even though you can see exactly how all this began.

* * *

"I know it's kind of sad," Feferi smiles tiredly, placing the flower on a sad small marker that says _Megido 2000-2013_. There isn't room for any more letters. Really the letters themselves are small, so small and tiny, and they barely fit on that small shabby marker. "Witches destroy so much, and, don't we have the obligation? It's a duty to save millions, so we have to kill one or two. It's not nice. But that's the way of things. It's all part of a natural order. We're the girls who stand in front of the world."

"Who was she?" Jade asks.

"Just a cutie who stood in front of a spider."

* * *

You kill the spider. You have to. Feferi's tridents whirl in a deadly dance and she's crying, her big glassy eyes bigger and glassier than ever. The witch is monstrous. A monster wrapped up in legs and arms and eyes and dungeons eightfold. But not even Feferi, with her power and control and evil trident can stand against a lucky swipe. Her falling tumbling rag doll body has you storming forward, ready to deliver justice. A needle swipes through the air. You know the runes of Azathoth, and you've dreamed dark dreams of Oglogoth.

Your transformation is in the velvet of decay, and your contract is bound in the bright blue blood of the spider, now a girl, now a doll, pierced through by your needles.

Feferi hiccups. "It's sort of the natural order of things," and she hands you the seed.

* * *

You're invincible. You're mighty.

It makes you smile that this much power is walking around in your frame, and it is the unobservant folly of those around you who do not see it. Jade, who has always had her science and her sharpshooting, rubs Feferi's back and gets her a glass of water.

"I thought it would feel better," Feferi mutters.

* * *

Terezi, happy imbecilic Terezi who can do more damage than any witch with a few well placed suggestions calls you up after one night of your duty to the universe.

"So, what exactly happens after you're done being the magical answer to everything?" The question haunts you.

* * *

Jade is a rock. Very literally, you tell her. She is a semi-precious stone, meant to grant immortality. She laughs, and you braid her hair, waiting for the bell to ring. You're immortal. Invincible.

You don't worry about the fact that you haven't seen Feferi at school recently.

* * *

Terezi runs down the field in the rain, baseball bat flying behind her. The world comes shattering crashing around her running fleeing body. But she is not the center of the storm. She just unleashed it with her careless calculated words.

You're all trapped in rising water and an abyss of rage at the sorrow that doesn't break, at the world that refuses to be right, at the anger you hold inside yourself when it isn't useful. If the sea doesn't drown you, the tentacles will. A new witch is risen. You knew it was coming but you closed your eyes and pretended that it wasn't because she handed you despair to cleanse you, handed you adventure to give you power, and handed you the universe with the injunction that it would now be your duty to make it spin.

Whatever was inside Feferi is older than you can imagine and it wants to right the world with a forceful shove. She has become teeth and jaws and monstrosities that whisper to you in your dreams. She is the demon at the end of the world. She is the world. The universe dwells in her consideration, and that universe is wrong. Her will can put it right, because she, like you, always knows what's B-----------EST. Terezi pants, Jade stares. You can feel the cages descending.

You know what you have to do. It's the natural order of things, like she said. She taught you that. She taught you that sometimes the only way to win is to hurt. You reach for your jewel. The needles appear in agonizing light.

There's a trident coming for you, and you are so ready, you could ride that trident over a waterfall, and come around to stab Feferi with it. It all began because she had to teach you that this life wasn't fair, and what you were doing wasn't right, and if this was how the universe kept spinning, then there was something horrible and wrong with the universe.

Your needles are joined by the barrel of a rifle. It knocks the point of contact off kilter. You duelists stumble back, in time for you to receive rifle butt to the abdomen (and when you get your breath back, boy will you ever tell Jade off about _that_ ), and for Feferi to get a face full of baseball bat.

Terezi stands over the shark faced horror of the deep. "I did it! I told Vriska to leg it. I knew it would make her turn. I knew being kicked out of the perfect gang would turn her into something you all had to kill. I didn't ping that she'd go after Aradia first, and not me. I thought she'd go for the squishy defenseless unmagical girl. I thought I'd get revenge. You want to fix the world so badly, Miss Bubbleberries and Cream? Fix me first."

* * *

In the end, Feferi is smiling at you from a hospital bed, and Jade has given you flowers, and you have found an appropriately grand vase, not even Feferi in all her generosity will ever be able to match. "You know, with our despair seeds," she says quietly, looking at Jade, cleaning her rifle meaningfully on the floor. "We're probably going to go down together, Rose."

"You might. Jade, Terezi and I have the order of things to upset. Maybe I'll make the universe stop. Maybe I'll make the Horrorterrors dance to my tune," you smile, daring her to join your cause. She'll probably end up leading it. Making all the rules to protect everyone. You'll be keeping an eye on each other, no matter what, because you can see where it began, and you think if she can take hold of life again and take control, you'll have something of the childhood you bargained away to keep the universe turning and weeping.


	9. Eridan<3<Cronus: Try Listening to What Your Mouth is Saying - G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eridan isn't really impressed with his cousin. They just can't seem to get along. It's probably a family thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humanstuck, and probably the gen-est non-romantic response to an incest prompt ever, but it's supposed to be Eridan♠Cronus  
> Made for thespiebandit's prompt in BR5: Quotes
> 
> A: SUCK MY DICK  
> B: I'd rather NOT  
> A: YEAH CUS YOU WOULD GAG ON MY MASSIVE DONG  
> \- Team Robots' chat
> 
> Warnings: Despite the pairing no actual incest, one horrible insinuation about age gap stuff and legality, internalized homophobia and misogyny, and Cronus typical ableism

Things always get weird when your cousin comes over. For starters, your fathers have this weird canceling effect on each other which means there's a lot of sitting around the bonfire Bud Lites in hand, and war stories that never _go_ anywhere. Just "Wwhen I was in 'Nam—"

"You nevwer wvere in 'Nam, show off. You wvanna be a good example to the kids, fine, but don lie about your tour of duty!"

Sometimes the dialog goes down with Uncle O in Father's place, and Father in Uncle O's but the sentiments are basically the same. Just the wars are different. Desert Storm and Iraq get mentioned instead.

You can't be sure, because of the bickering, but you think Uncle O actually was in a war of some sort, even if he was only the 'clean up crew' whatever that means. He screams at the sight of clowns and takes a really vicious delight in killing spiders. One of your enemies online is a bit of an expert in psychology and she says Uncle O probably has PTSD. You believe her, though you told Tent that she should use the term 'shell shock' as it's more historically accurate.

Your father was sent to the German base in Frankfurt during Vietnam. He doesn't have PTSD. You do know that. He was just a good cop in Chicago, and is now Police Commissioner. He's planning on running for election for something next summer. You haven't the heart to tell him that it's an historical fact that Republicans can't get elected in Illinios. You have decided that he can destroy his prospects on his own.

You also have decided that making s'mores is kids stuff, and consequently are horrified when your nineteen year old _supposed_ to be cool as all get out cousin suggests that you make s'mores, and is already breaking up the chocolate bars. He grins as the bickering continues, and sits back in his Adirondack chair, staring at the blue sky.

He's got a bandage on his forehead and you wonder if this is what your mother was whispering about when she said, scandalized, that your cousin had gotten a tattoo on his eighteenth birthday, and doesn't that go to show blood will out. Usually she's just talking about the fact that Uncle O decided to become a father in his late teens. Apparently losing your virginity before you go out East results in Cronuses who are bad influences. You do suspect your mother is often wrong about a lot of things.

Still, she told your father that Cronus wasn't allowed to be a bad example to you. You suspect, therefore, that this is a concession to the motherly rule. If you can't see the tattoo, obviously that makes it okay. You scoff at the rule, understanding that imagining the tattoo is always going to make it much better than whatever actually is under that white piece of gauze.

You don't have much to talk about. Cronus isn't obsessed with _Harry Potter_ any more, which means your arguments on how dumb and awful those books are (you've read them all cover to cover, _just_ to pull out relevant examples, of course) don't happen. His garage band fell completely apart when he was sixteen, and no matter how much he tries to revive it, the members are staying in a permanently musicless state. It is, you're sure, a boon for classical music everywhere. You've told him so, multiple times.

"Fuckin' sucks—"

"CRONUS!"

"I said freakin', Dad, I swvear! I knowv the rules!"

You honestly don't care as he talks about how much he hates college, and he doesn't get how "Captor of all people, I mean sure he's a fu—freakin' savant or some such shi—immy gee, but how the hel—icoptor does a kid who wears a helmet get into MIT just so he can be near his precious 'suddenly I'm evweryone's best friend' mute thespian weirdo. Apparently he's got a banging hot Harvard Law girlfriend now, too."

Because of the rules Cronus ends up sounding like he's about to go to a sock hop. You tell him with much derision because you honestly don't believe that anyone could sound worse than Cronus does when he doesn't watch his mouth. He just smiles a little eagerly, as though you said the best thing ever, and you did not mean to make him feel better with a put down. Siiiiiiigh. You're basically the worst at making people feel bad, and it's time you admit it to yourself that you were just meant to be a nice guy.

"You know, I shoulda been a kid in the fifties. It wvas a simpler time, then. A good looking clean cut guy like me could have made the world his oyster."

"I suspect you're talking about girls, not the wworld," you know you sound a little peevish but you don't care.

"'Course I am, Chief. That bug hasn't hit you yet? Don' wvorry. Givwe it time an' it wvill," he snickers and ruffles your hair.

You glower because he's patronizing you, the bug has hit you, hit you but good, and it's bad and it hurts and he could never understand how awful it is, bein' in love. Somehow, you don' think Fef's gonna marry you like you want right outta high school. You're working on that angle, though.

"I'm in love wwith my best friend," you say, very quiet like.

You're trying to show him, but you don't want your dad to hear, because as far as your father knows your best friend is Karkat, on account of your mom not believing in innocent friendship between boys and girls. You have more than a suspicion that making your aggressively Republican father think you're gay is not going to end well.

Cronus whistles. "Well, yeowvch. You chose a bad family for that to happen in. Don' wvorry, though, I totally get it. Dude's just gotta let lovwe take him as it does, you know? And anal's pretty choice wvith anybody, but guys are wvay easier to convwince. So how far along in the romancin' scheme are ya? Do I gotta set Kan on your Dad to plead your case?"

That is when you realize that Cronus actually remembered who your supposed best friend (and Kar is your best friend, just not as best as Fef) is, and believes you're in love with him, and you could just roll up and die of shame.

"No, you idiot!" you hiss. "I'm talkin' about Fef!"

"Oh, that bouncy hippie chick? I can see that. Hel—sinki, I'd tap it, if it wvas legal."

"Don' you talk about her like that!"

"Or wvhat, you'll get angry, Eri-poo?"

"I hope your romance ballad collection falls inna blender!"

"Yeah, wvhatevwer. Suck my dick, short stuff."

You pause. You know his precious song books are a sore spot for him, but he's being so casual about the order, forgetting even to censor it, that you're not sure if he's being serious. But he can get inventively mean about a lot of things when he's being serious, so you err on the side of caution.

"I'd rather _not_."

"Yeah, 'cause you'd gag on my massivwe dong," and in that instant you see Cronus' eyes widen as his ears finally catch up with his mouth and he goes bright red. "Wvoah, I did not mean—"

"CRONUS!" And Uncle O drags him out of the chair by the ear.

You sort of hate yourself later for laughing at his shock. You should have used that moment to your advantage, and made him think that he'd scarred you for life or something. You could have held it over him for the rest of his life. Still, he looked hilarious, and you'll treasure that horrified expression for a long time to come.


	10. Aradia<>Rose: Dance for the Horrorterrors - G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose was supposed to go one a date. Instead she stuck herself and her friends in a nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humanstuck Aradia♦Rose with side Rose♥Jade  
> Written for vladeevee's prompt in BR6: Genre Blending  
> Prompt: Dancing contest films and Thriller
> 
> Warnings: Horrorterror text

Step. step. Sliiiiiiiide. Glide. Move like a Jellyfish. Be a jellyfish.

Be a jellyfish? Who suggested that? Rose opened her eyes to see Aradia's dark cheeks dimpling as she inclined her head toward Dave on the other side of the dance studio. There were giggles. There was smirking, in an irritatingly cool way, with just enough indifference to be passed off as a trick of the light. Rose shot her brother a murderous look that as good as said, in letters eight feet high and glowing purple, that his commentary on her dance moves was not appreciated any more than one appreciates tentacles ripping them in half, which was going to happen if they did not get this right.

She preferred the idea of nebulous tentacles as a punishment. It was much better than leaving their danger up to the imagination, after all. There were only so many dark shadows and twisting fun house mirrors and concentrated explosions with no rhyme or reason behind them before the strength of a woman's imagination attribute became a liability.

Rose also suspected that she would need to be diagnosed with paranoia when this little romp through some theatrical type's nightmare scenario of riddles and clues that killed people was over. They just had to beat the riddles, and, as Aradia had so succinctly put it "while we compete within these terrible rules, we must also break all the rules and defuse the situation."

Breaking rules was Rose's strong suit. They would win. Or at least reach the end of the maze, and save all the other groups trapped within its Stygian depths. She wondered briefly how Jade was doing, and wished she was there for the dance off, cheering Rose along, and promising to buy her sixteen! Sixteen! balls of yarn if she survived.

Don't think of that now. Don't think of the date you were supposed to be on. Don't do anything but DANCE. Step, step. Sliiiiiiide. Slide. Glide. D̸̨҉Á̷N̵C҉̛͞E͢͝.

"Rose, it is time to take a break!" Aradia called.

"No!" Rose shot back.

Her limbs felt like lead, but she could back step though. She could moon walk as though they were in outer space. She was, to use one of Dave's quick quips, so pro at this, the sun shone out of the 'o.' She could do it in her sleep. She had choreographed hundreds of routines. She had been Odette for the Syracuse School of Modern Dance's _Interpretations upon a Theme of Tchaikovsky Wherein the Music is Dismantled_.

She would dance, and she would break the dance floor. She would reveal the underpinnings and cast light on the dark places and FRE̴Ȩ ̛͟E͠V҉͝͝ER͞Y͢͞Ò͟Ń̕E͟͢.

Dave yelled something, starting back in horror. Black fires sprang from between the floorboards. Oh. It was starting. The final dance and Rose had better win it, or they were cinders. Lights flared. Music blasted. Fog rolled in. Through it all, Rose danced as though there was nothing but the voices of the void in her world. She didn't care about the screams. No one would challenge and break this messed up, foolish abyssal game with its mystery wrapped core the way she would. Rose would be the Mariana Trench of mystery. She would r̸̻̟͎̹̟̯͡͠a͓̥͍ź͙͖̜̲͔̜e̤̖̞͉̰ ̝̰̻͍͉͇̰̗́t̷͙̞̩͓̕͟h͔̭̟̩̤̀͠e̡̠̰̫͘͝ ͉͚̤̳̺̝͍́h̲͎͓̝͎̣͝͡e̸̡̯͙͚͖̤͈͢ą̛̞͍̞̀v̶̸̨̬͈e̫͈̭͍̖̝̪n̲͇̭͈̠͡s̸̫̝̲̯͓̺͡͠ ̧͓̞̰̜̘̤̤͞ͅa҉̡̨̟ͅṇ̨̭d҉̲̠̜̲ ̸̷̵̙̩̯t̷̳̣͕́h̲̠̥é́҉̣͎̥̟̫ ̷̴͙̲ͅẹ͚̲̕ͅa̛̲̺̲̜͎̫̻̖r̮̦͔̝̰͘t̵̝̣̕h̸̫̳̩̭̠̣̹

Aradia stepped through the ring of fire. "This has to stop, Rose. You know it does."

Rose danced left. Aradia mirrored her on the right. Rose meant to scream "Be silent!" only she didn't mean to scream it at all, and what came out of her mouth was a garbled mess.

Rose glided forward, and Aradia glided forward, an easy smile on her face. "You're very good at this. You make it fun."

A meteor of black flame shot from the floorboards, whistling past her hair.

"Stop it!" Rose wanted to yell. "You'll get hurt!"

"No I won't. Because I'm your friend, and you're my friend, and you know you don't want to hurt any of us. Even if your eldritch forces have other plans, we are friends first, and that matters more to you than anything."

They spun. The leaped. They floated. Rose danced with squids. Aradia was a jellyfish. They danced a dance of creation and destruction and chaos and glory, but Rose couldn't break from Aradia's mirror, feeding all the energy safely back inside her, turning the explosion into a river and looping the river around and around until it became a sea, filled with light bouncing off the waves.

The music faded, but they were still moving, circling slowly into each other, until Rose fell exhausted into Aradia's hug, and the fires died. The whole studio—she would stake her life on it that the horizon over Aradia's shoulder as well—was a wreck of splintered, burned wood. "I just wanted to go on one measley date," Rose muttered.

"And you will! There will be music and dancing and parties. Lots of parties. With interesting hats!" Aradia promised. "And inner and romantic things and Jade will fall twice as in love with you. But you must promise not to mix eldritch horrors with uncertainty, because that really does not help anything, and scares us. Not to mention nearly got us all killed. And I think Terezi now believes there is some conspiracy against the government. So you should probably fix that after your date. But let's get you into your little black dress that you insisted upon buying, when there were many other natty choices, and get operation: the date adventure off to a roaring start!"

"I'm not calling it 'the date adventure.' Not ever."

"Well I am, so you'll have to get used to it."


End file.
